Well, @prisoner-monkeys, that says it all doesn’t it! Please don’t put him in a DTM role Ferrari…

I wonder who paid the 20k fine DAMS got for not fielding Magnussen… Smart or idiotic move, we will see. Could they not field anyone else who was there/flew in straight away? Or is it a registration thing etc. I’m sure a lot of drivers would jump at the chance to have a free day testing a GP2 car..

The challenge Ferrari face is the need to balance things out. They won’t take Marciello straight into Formula 1, but they need to place him in a series that develops his racecraft without putting him in the spotlight. They lost Sergio Perez to McLaren very quickly, and they have evidently invested more in Marciello. It might make sense to put him in GP2, but they won’t be able to run him in free practice. I wouldn’t be surprised if Marciello makes a handful of FP1 appearances for Sauber or Marussia, split with a Formula Renault campaign.

Marciello on top again in today’s first session. This guy is phenomenal, but get Rosenqvist a good test too, someone. He kept up nicely.

I do wonder if GP2 testing is as futile as it seems, Ferrari doesn’t have a solid connection with any team in GP2 or FR3.5, afaik. Free Practice runs could come at non-gp2 weekends only. And if he’s this fast in a Trident..

@npf1 Rosenqvist is a part of the Mucke/Mercedes lineup, not unlike Wehrlein and Vietoris, so yeah, unless he has much personal backing, I don’t see him anything apart from tin-tops in future.
Ferrari and ART have good connections, Nicolas Todt turns up at several weekends in Ferrari’s pit garage. Of course, he has no obligation to take Marciello like he took Bianchi in 2010, as the latter was a member of the All Road Team, Todt’s management squad. I remember Tech1 having taken Bianchi in WSR, but that could have been based more on nationality than the French squad’s proximity to Ferrari. But Marciello did test for them, which makes me think that they might be striking up a relationship here, like Tech1 did with Red Bull in 2010 (Hartley, Ricciardo, Vergne).
I’ve heard that Prema are planning to return to WSR in the future, though I’m not sure if it is for 2014. And even if they come, there’s no saying they’ll be successful, though WSR has less team-to-team variation than GP2. Case in point being this year’s top ten in WSR were from nine different teams, whereas the top ten in GP2 were from only seven different teams.

Lots of new drivers, the top 5 drivers are supposed to leave the series, more drivers from WSR 3.5 than GP3, I would like to see Ellinas in GP2 next year, and seems that Dillmann will stay with Russian Time.

After the team’s recent comments, I don’t think DAMS would be happy to sign Magnussen without testing or a gesture from McLaren’s side.

@wsrgo Bianchi certainly worked better for them than Aleshin! I do think it would be too late perhaps to go to FR3.5 for Prema now, but it’d be cool to see them in that series. Even then, I think Ferrari would rather see Marciello at Tech 1 in FR3.5 or DAMS in either series, than at a brand new team.

I hope Rosenqvist isn’t ‘doomed’ to end up in DTM, though. But judging how many drivers have tweeted they couldn’t even pay for a GP2 test, I think it’d be hard for him to continue in open wheeled series.

Racing Engineering have a nice line-up. Two drivers with a proven pedigree, in a championship-winning team. Evans had a pretty disappointing season this year, but Arden as a whole sucked.

Given some of the drivers that are appearing, it’s fairly obvious that the team’s are just phoning it in, probably because testing is compulsory, but they don’t really need to do it, so they just take drivers who can cover their costs for the week. Arden and Carlin have substandard line-ups for the quality of the teams, whilst Martsenko is all over the place.

I’m curious as to how Russian Time will play their hand next year. They should be able to attract some big names, but I’m not sure about Markelov. I don’t know much about him.

Maybe a switch to GP2 would be good for him. After becoming runner-up in FR 3.5 this year, the pressure could be quite high to become champion in 2014. Da Costa has shown this season what such high expectations can lead to.

In FR 3.5, the only way is up for him now, so he has to become champion. If he would finish in the top 3 in GP2, I think it would be considered as a good result, showing he can adapt to different circumstances and different cars.

@prisoner-monkeys Markelov is a Motopark protege. He finished 4th in ADAC Formel Masters in 2011, before moving up to German F3 iwhere he’s finished 7th and 2nd in the last two years. He isn’t a superb talent like Kirchhofer, but he is reasonably consistent.